The Usefulness of Antigen Testing in Predicting Contagiousness in COVID-19

ABSTRACT: Increasing the diagnostic capacity for COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2 infection) is required to improve case detection, reduce COVID-19 expansion, and boost the world economy. Rapid antigen detection tests are less expensive and easier to implement, but their diagnostic performance has been question...

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Autores:
Lopera Restrepo, Tulio José
Alzate Ángel, Juan Carlos
Díaz Castrillón, Francisco Javier
Rugeles López, María Teresa
Aguilar Jiménez, Wbeimar
Tipo de recurso:
Article of investigation
Fecha de publicación:
2022
Institución:
Universidad de Antioquia
Repositorio:
Repositorio UdeA
Idioma:
eng
OAI Identifier:
oai:bibliotecadigital.udea.edu.co:10495/29755
Acceso en línea:
https://hdl.handle.net/10495/29755
Palabra clave:
SARS-CoV-2
COVID-19
Betacoronavirus
Infecciones por Coronavirus
Coronavirus Infections
Reacción en Cadena de la Polimerasa
Polymerase Chain Reaction
Antigen detection test
RT-PCR
http://id.nlm.nih.gov/mesh/D000086402
http://id.nlm.nih.gov/mesh/D000086382
Rights
openAccess
License
Atribución 2.5 Colombia
Description
Summary:ABSTRACT: Increasing the diagnostic capacity for COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2 infection) is required to improve case detection, reduce COVID-19 expansion, and boost the world economy. Rapid antigen detection tests are less expensive and easier to implement, but their diagnostic performance has been questioned compared to reverse transcription-PCR (RT-PCR). Here, we evaluate the performance of the Standard Q COVID-19 antigen test for diagnosing SARS-CoV-2 infection and predicting contagiousness compared to RT-PCR and viral culture, respectively. The antigen test was 100.0% specific but only 40.9% sensitive for diagnosing infection compared to RT-PCR. Interestingly, SARS-CoV-2 contagiousness is highly unlikely with a negative antigen test since it exhibited a negative predictive value of 99.9% compared to viral culture. Furthermore, a cycle threshold (CT) value of 18.1 in RT-PCR was shown to be the one that best predicts contagiousness (area under the curve [AUC], 97.6%). Thus, screening people with antigen testing is a good approach to prevent SARS-CoV-2 contagion and allow returning to daily activities.